Wednesday, August 27, 2014

SCOTUS sees more requests for same-sex marriage appeals from Oklahoma and Virginia


Plenty of requests for the US Supreme Court regarding marriage equality today.

Lawyers for Oklahoma couple Mary Bishop and Sharon Baldwin have filed a request for SCOUTS to take up their case. The couple successfully sued Tulsa County Clerk Sally Howe Smith for refusing to issue a marriage license due to a state ban on same-sex marriage.

Last month the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a federal judges ruling that Oklahoma's ban on marriage equality is unconstitutional.

Smith's lawyers have already filed a similar appeal to SCOTUS earlier this month.

Over in Virginia, the American Foundation for Equal Rights have filed what is now the third request to SCOTUS regarding that state's same-sex marriage ban.

“Forty-seven years ago, Mildred and Richard Loving passionately argued that the Supreme Court must end the unjust laws that dare to tell us who we can and cannot love,” said Plaintiffs’ lead co-counsel Ted Olson.

“Today, almost half a century later, it is time thousands of gay and lesbian couples across America are extended that same promise of equality and freedom that the Supreme Court granted to the Lovings. Our plaintiffs have already fought for, in two separate courts, a constitutional promise they have been denied. Now, the Supreme Court must take up the Bostic case, answer once and for all the surpassingly important constitutional question of marriage equality, and rule decisively in favor of the fundamental right to marry for every same-sex couple.”

Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring and the Alliance Defending Freedom (acting for the Norfolk County Clerk) had both recently filed similar requests for review.

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